Heritage Bowl

The Heritage Bowl is a dormant National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) bowl game pitting a team from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) against a team from the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). It was hoped that it would become a true national championship game for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).^[1] It was a successor to the Pelican Bowl, which matched MEAC and SWAC teams during the 1970s,^[5] and a predecessor to the Celebration Bowl of the 2010s.

Background

The bowl's legitimacy as an HBCU championship game was called into question immediately, starting with its very first contest, when its committee awarded its automatic bid to the MEAC's second-seeded co-champion, North Carolina A&T, over its top-seed, Delaware State^[6] (Delaware State had defeated the Aggies head-to-head, on the road even, but their conference victory over Bethune–Cookman was viewed differently as it had been determined by a forfeit^[7]). That first game brought other challenges as well, as it also drew only 7,728 spectators and lost future support from its title sponsor, Alamo, in the process. "That left the organizers $1 million in debt and blaming each other for the bowl's problems. President James McKinley, ousted in January, sued Alamo and his board of directors to win back his now largely meaningless post."^[1] The bowl also still owed its participating schools money months after the game.^[8] Heritage Bowl II did not fair all that much better, as it was played without a title sponsor and featured neither the MEAC champion nor the SWAC champion. Even with Florida A&M serving as a de facto home team, the game still only drew 11,273, albeit an improvement over the previous game.^[9] In subsequent years half of the conferences' top seeds declined the automatic bowl bid in order to participate in the NCAA Division I–AA playoffs instead. This became an especially common issue for the MEAC, often leaving its runner-up—or even its third seed, for the final three Heritage Bowls—to represent the conference.

The bowl peaked in the mid-1990s as it found a new stable home (Atlanta's Georgia Dome) and a new title sponsor (Jim Walter Homes),^[2] all while attendance sharply increased^[10]—and the December 30, 1994 game finally got to pair the top-seeded champions from both leagues. This renaissance was short-lived, however, with attendance leveling off as the game evolved into an annual contest between Southern and the MEAC's third seed. Because of the MEAC's unwillingness to guarantee that its champion would participate, the television contract was ended and eventually the game was too, even though its later attendance figures surpassed some higher-division bowl games. Perhaps not coincidentally, the SWAC (which usually did send its champion, because its extended regular season usually disqualified it from the playoffs) won most of the Heritage Bowls that were held.

The bowl was played in Miami Gardens, Florida in 1991, Tallahassee, Florida in 1993, and Atlanta from 1994–99.^[11]

Legacy

The game after the 1994 season was the only one to feature both conferences' top seeds; the games after the 1992 and 1996 seasons did not include either league's top seed. Several Heritage Bowls were in position to have a major impact on the black national championship selection process. Had Howard not declined its automatic bid to play Southern after the 1993 campaign, for example, it would likely have prevented the HBCU national title from being split between the two schools by selectors. Likewise, in 1996 SWAC top-seed Jackson State opted to forgo the bowl for the playoffs, missing an opportunity to avoid a split-black national title with Howard. In 1998 MEAC top-seed Hampton refused its invitation to play Southern, as did the second-seed Florida A&M; both FAMU and Southern ended up being declared HBCU champions by selectors, because it was never settled on the field.

In 2010 a replacement for the Heritage Bowl, the "Legacy Bowl"—not to be confused with a later exhibition game of the same name—was proposed for the 2011 season, but MEAC officials voted it down.^[12] In 2015 the two conferences finally reached an agreement to compete in the new Celebration Bowl.

Game results

Note: an asterisk denotes when the conference's outright champion or top-seeded co-champion accepted its automatic bid to the bowl (in 1991 the bowl's committee issued the MEAC's bid to its second-seeded co-champion^[6])

References